


Ghost of Vengeance

by Letummordre



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, F/M, Fae Kylux, Her name isn't actually mentioned, M/M, Off-screen Relationship(s), Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), but it's pretty obvious, thus the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 16:50:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6574222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Letummordre/pseuds/Letummordre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knew it could be real, he’d said once. Dreams don’t lie.</p><p>Ben Solo lives in a cabin in the woods alone, until he saves the life of the one person who can change his life forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost of Vengeance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ingu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ingu/gifts).



He used to have dreams when he was young of the fog coming and taking everything he loved away from him. He stood, watching, as thick grey crept through and swallowed his family and home without a sound and retreated back into the forest as swiftly as it had come. It left behind nothing to remind him of what had been, who had been. 

 

Ben stopped being afraid of that dream a long time ago. He lived in the woods far from the cities, watched the fog come and go each morning with a kind of nostalgia for that childhood absolute fear. _It would be easier than not feeling anything at all_ , he thought. 

 

Now he dreams of vague memories, his mother’s lavender oil that she put on his forehead when he was sick, his father chopping wood while telling him stories of flying ships and people who were able to read minds.  _ He knew it could be real _ , he’d said once. _ Dreams don’t lie _ . He dreamed of dancing around controlled flame, laughing as flowers were woven into his hair. Once it had been long enough to do such a thing, and she’d brushed it and played with it every day. “Your hair is so beautiful,” she’d said, “I wish I knew how you kept it so soft.” He didn’t know, it had just grown and he’d let it. He thought it had more to do with how much attention she gave it. 

 

After her death, he’d shorn it all close to his skull. As he ran a hand through it, he realized distantly that it had grown to his shoulders again. It didn’t feel like it’d been so long, but time had the ability to slip past through fingertips as smoothly as stream water did. He didn’t try to hold on to it, now. 

 

The fog vanished beyond some distant point in the trees, past where Ben could watch it go and he turned to go back inside. A high scream of pain froze him, the hair on the back of his neck and arms standing on end as he turned his head back to the woods. It was distant, but loud enough to have made it back to him. He knew the animals that roamed these woods, and he knew it not as a sound that they would make but a sound that he’d known a human would make. 

 

He gripped his shotgun, hardly noted that his bootlaces were firmly tied and ran toward the trees. The grip of fear that this could be a trap did not hold him. He’d stopped fearing death after it had ripped her from his arms and spirited her away. Maybe, this time, he’d chase death far enough to find her. 

 

He’d give anything to hug her tightly again. This he knows as solidly as he knows his heartbeat, the howling of the wind in deep winter that rattled his windows and settled deep into his bones. No matter how close he got to fire, it couldn’t warm the ice at his core. 

 

As he trudged deeper and deeper into the woods, he noted that the birds had gone utterly silent. Not a good sign, but not one that was particularly surprising since his steps had been loud and heavy as he ran. He slowed, hearing his breath come in short pants and his heart pounding hard in his chest. 

 

He places a hand over his mouth, the leather glove frigid against his lips. He doesn’t see any predators, doubts he’d care that much even if he did, but finding someone else this far into the woods would be highly unexpected. Ben had chosen his place to build his cabin because he knew that people hardly ventured so far in. He’d wanted to be isolated. 

He kept walking, watching wearily for whatever might be lurking in wait. He hesitated as he heard short panting breaths, a low whimper in the trees ahead. Ben shook his head, stepping through the trees to see someone laying in the soft dirt. Their leg was bleeding steadily, caught in a trap someone had so carelessly left some time ago if the rust was anything to go by. 

 

“Shit.” Ben cursed, stepping forward. The person didn’t move, chest heaving as Ben stepped closer and examined the trap. If he didn’t get the person’s leg free, they could easily bleed out. The trap was easily fourty pounds, and by the look of it the person’s leg was broken. Lifting it with them would just put unnecessary weight on it, and increase the damage already done. He cursed again under his breath, gripped the springs of the trap and pushed hard on them. 

 

The person hissed, a low noise of pain. Ben winced, but pressed harder on the springs until he heard a creaking type of noise. The trap opened slightly, and Ben shifted to move his leg up awkwardly to step on the edge of it. “This is going to hurt.” He warned, unsure if the person was even awake enough to hear him as he put all of his weight into the trap and pushed again at the springs. With a loud squeal of metal, the trap released. 

 

Ben gently gripped the person’s leg, wincing again as he pulled flesh and presumably bone out of the metal and moved it aside from the trap. He found the cleanest patch of snow that he could, putting it onto the wound. He bit his bottom lip, taking his jacket off to wrap around the person. They were a he, it seemed, and so thin and lanky that Ben wondered how they’d ever survived out in the woods at all. He reached into the pocket of his jacket, finding a thin handkerchief there that he’d kept because it reminded him of her. 

 

Once she’d used it, dabbing at her eyes when she’d laughed herself into crying at something that was said. Or, toward the end, when she’d wept in pain at the fever that overtook her. It would be suited for this, somehow. She would have been the person to help some random person in the woods without a second thought. Before, Ben would have walked away. She’d changed him, deeply. She would have found this person’s hair even more beautiful, probably, would have run her fingers through it and made delighted noises and smiled her enormous bright smile. 

 

He pressed the handkerchief to the deepest part of the wound, taking off his belt and wrapping it haphazardly around their leg to keep the cloth in place, and just tight enough to try and stop the bleeding. He slipped his arms under them, lifting them and carrying them away from the bloody trap. He’d need supplies, he thought, if he was to keep the poor trembling being in his arms alive for very long. Medicine, bandages. He couldn’t remember if he’d brought that all with him after her death. If he’d wanted to be surrounded by it and reminded that it had all failed her. 

 

He had failed her. He’d told her he’d never let her go, but as she stared at him with glassy eyes and shaking with tears spilling down her cheeks he’d whispered, “It’s okay. It’s okay to let go, if that’s what you need to do. I’ll be here with you, I promise. I promise you I’ll be alright if you have to leave me now.” 

 

She’d smiled at him then, a pale imitation of the bright shining smile that she’d had while she’d braided his hair and danced around the flames with him. And then, an hour later she was gone. He wasn’t alright, but he had been with her and had kept her as comfortable as he could until she walked away hand in hand with death, so he supposed it hadn’t been a complete lie on his part. He still missed her, bitterly and painfully. He still imagined sometimes he could hear her words in the wind, or catch a glimpse of her in some patch of sunlight. 

 

It was all fantasy, but it made him smile sometimes and made the wound in his heart well and bleed other times. 

 

He rushed as quickly as he could to the cabin, setting his rescue down on his bed as he walked back toward the kitchen, rummaging through drawers and cabinets. He found bandages tossed aside into a crate, the numbing medication he’d put on her sore joints, and some long dead wilted flowers that she’d attempted to press for him. He swallowed hard at the sight of it, gathering what medical supplies he could find. A thread that he’d used to sew his favorite boots back together, the needle he’d used for that. Witch hazel. He put them by the bedside, removed the handkerchief and the belt. 

 

Ben closed his eyes for a moment, then begun cleaning the wound as carefully and gently as he could. Touching it confirmed his fears that the leg had been broken, and he frowned as he sewed the wound shut neatly. He dabbed it with witch hazel, bandaging it. He went back to his crate and broke one of the wood slots off of it, cutting it to a smooth edge before binding the stranger’s leg with it. Once he was satisfied that he’d done as much as he could, he draped the blankets around the stranger with one of the thick soft pelts that he’d treated himself for some extra warmth during the winters. 

 

He heated some stew over the fire, warming some milk and honey and leaving it next to the bedside before turning back outside into the snow. It reminded him all too much of her, all the nights he’d waited by her side for her to get better again and again until the last time became too much. He stayed outside until the moon was high in the sky. Somewhere in the darkness wolves called their song to the moon, and it felt so agonizingly lonely that his own heart panged. 

 

He stepped inside, noticing that the stranger had rolled over to face the window with their back to the doorway. But as he’d hoped, the milk cup and the stew bowl were empty. He quietly took the dishes away, leaving some water and biscuits in their place in case his guest got thirsty or hungry and quickly wolfed down his own bowl of stew. Tomorrow he would go into town and get better supplies to change the stranger’s wound. He would be more prepared when he knew what to expect.

 

He hoped desperately this stranger didn’t die on him, that he wouldn’t fail someone else. 

 

He settled into his chair by the fire, settling a woven thing she’d made for him once onto his lap and closed his eyes tracing the material and trying desperately to remember all of the little details of her face that had somehow faded in memory now that he couldn’t see her every day. His heart clenched in his chest. He fell asleep dreaming of her braiding the stranger’s long golden-red hair, giving him a crown of fresh trilliums and smiling as she whispered that they would take good care of him. Her own brown hair was loose around her shoulders, out of the buns she’d loved so much when they were young. She’d stopped putting up her own hair when she’d gotten weak, but when Ben would braid her hair and smooth his hand over it she would give him that faded version of the smile that had gotten him through so many days.

 

Still continued to get him through the days he counted, until the day he’d go to find death waiting for him too. He didn’t have the will to fight it anymore, he wasn’t as fearful as he had been by her bedside watching her struggle to hold on for him. He was ready, more than she’d ever been. 

 

She’d looked so peaceful when he’d realized that she was gone, lips tinted blue and that faint smile still touching her lips. He’d carried her into the little boat he’d built when he’d had too many pent up feelings and had too much free time over the years, set her inside and wove flowers into her hair. He’d held her hand for a long while, murmuring that he’d miss her always, every day before he pushed the boat out into the enormous lake and watched it float away into the morning fog. 

 

He’d never seen it again. 

 

He woke in the morning, the grey watery light of dawn dappling through the curtains of the window into the cabin. Ben rubbed his eyes, sitting up and hearing the sharp crackling of his bones shifting and waking. His heart nearly stopped in his chest as he realized the bed was empty, the stranger mysteriously missing. 

 

He stood, investigating the cabin and while relieved he hadn’t found the stranger crumpled somewhere alone and in pain, the absolute disappearance like his guest hadn’t been there at all somewhat disturbed him. The water glass and plate of biscuits were empty, neatly stacked onto the bedtable. Ben’s jacket was missing, but the handkerchief was folded neatly. It was clean, devoid of all blood and smelled like pine and honey. 

 

“Well,” Ben said to the empty cabin, “I hope you’re alright.” Not that his mysterious guest could hear him, but he could give the sentiment anyway when he was the only one around to hear it. He made his bed, cleaned the dishes and changed clothes, tucking the handkerchief back close to his heart. 

 

He opened the door but stopped when he saw it, a crown of trilliums resting on the step there. He knelt instantly, gently brushing his fingertips against it. It looked like how he’d imagined it in his dreams, and he felt the sharp sob escape him before he felt the warm wetness fall down his cheek. “Oh.” He said out loud, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. He picked it up carefully, taking it inside and resting it on the bedside table where the dirty plates had rested. 

 

He admired it for a good few moments, it was obvious a lot of effort had gone into making it with how tightly it was woven. Yet the flowers remained beautiful and delicate. He leaned in, taking in the scent for a moment, surprised at how they still smelled so vivid after having been picked. He gave a faint smile, glancing over it one more time before heading back outside and chopping some extra firewood that he’d been avoiding. 

Over the course of a week after he’d taken care of his mysterious guest, he found plenty of trinkets at his door. A beautiful silver ring, intricate work he’d never before seen on anything, a small bucket of fruit, a tiny crown of mistletoe that threw Ben completely off because the last time he’d seen it was when he was a child. A long way from where he currently was, without the person who would have known what to do with all of these gifts. The flower crown still stayed just as radiant and alive as the day it had shown up on his doorstep, but it still reminded him of her every time he saw it. 

 

The villagers would have called it witchcraft, would have likely burned it, but Ben considered it some sort of blessing. From who or what, he had no idea, but he didn’t bother to question it. He did however wear the ring and kept it safe under his gloves when he went out to hunt or do anything that would tarnish it. 

 

When he wakes up at the end of the week, he knows that this morning is somehow different than all of the others and it isn’t because it is the first time in a long time that he hasn’t dreamt of her. He gets up, goes through his morning routine and finally opens the door outside. It’s a warm morning unlike it has been in some time, and his guest stands there waiting with his long golden-red hair braided over his shoulder and down his chest. 

 

“Welcome back, friend.” Ben says, “I’m glad to see you’re alright.” 

 

It’s the right thing to say, it seems when his guest smiles a sweet sharp little smile. Ben steps aside, giving a gesture to invite him inside. He’s wearing beautiful velvety fabrics this time, accentuating his lithe frame and pale skin. He has freckles, Ben notices this time, touching his neck and cheeks like he’d been kissed by starlight itself. 

 

“You liked the flower crown the best.” He says, his voice melodic. 

 

“It reminds me of someone I knew.” Ben explained, “I have no idea how you knew.” 

 

“I know a great many things.” He said, stepping closer. He was barefoot, Ben realized suddenly. His splint was gone. 

 

“Your leg!” He said alarmed, dropping to his knees to touch the man’s leg. He seemed amused, shifting his leg closer as Ben hesitated just before he touched the stranger’s pale skin. “There’s no scar. No… anything.” Ben said, confused. 

 

The stranger smiles, a beautiful shining thing like hers. “There’s a whole different world out there.” He said, “One you couldn’t imagine.” 

 

Ben glances away, stands to his full height again. He doesn’t know what to say to that, but the never-wilting flowers tipped him off before anything else had that there was something else at play. At his vantage, he notices what he hadn’t paid attention to before. He had short ears like a human’s, but they were slightly pointed. 

 

“Maybe you’re right,” Ben shrugged, “Once I thought I knew everything.” But she was taken away, and the world he’d known and had been so confident in had shattered. He’d run from everything that had been comfortable. 

 

The stranger tilted his head slightly, giving a strange little smirk before stepping past him and going to sit on Ben’s bed where he’d rested. “You confuse me. It’s not an easy feat.” He said, crossing one leg over the other. “You are different than most humans.” 

 

Ben laughed, a short little huff of a thing. “I get told I’m strange pretty often. Or did, when I still interacted with people on a regular basis. You’re not the first, I’m afraid.” 

 

The stranger gave a noise of agreement. “I’m Hux,” He says finally, “The Queen’s tactician.” 

 

Ben blinked once, twice. “I’m Ben. I belong to nothing really, anymore.” 

 

Hux watches him under golden eyelashes like a predator, calculatingly. “Would you like to belong to something again?” 

 

Ben swallows hard, knowing that somehow Hux knows all about her and is talking about her directly. How he knows, Ben has no clue, but there is no sense in playing dumb and pretending he doesn’t know what Hux means by that. 

 

“I don’t know if my heart could take that,” He said, turning away toward the window and watching the woods outside. Beside that, he doesn’t know Hux. This pretty lithe thing that had the ability to heal broken bones in a week, that was caught in a trap and thanks his rescuer with beautiful little gifts. Hux who came and went without a trace. Hux who is definitely, certainly not human. 

 

“You’re stronger than you think.” Hux says, leaning back onto his elbows and watching him curiously. His eyes are green, the color of the trees when spring sapped the snow from the ground and warmth brought out its vibrancy. Maybe the people in the village weren’t wrong, Ben finally considered, maybe he had lost his mind completely when she’d died. When he’d been packing he’d heard the whispers.  _ She was the only thing keeping him grounded. He’d really gone mental a long time ago. Now he’s finally free. He’ll be a ghost of vengeance by this time next year.  _

 

But the anger had hallowed him out and abandoned him too, until he was this hollow husk of a being that survived but did not live. 

 

“Am I?” He asked, finally. 

 

“Yes.” Hux said, resting his head down onto the pillow. “I can feel it in you, under all of the darkness that consumes you. Most humans are weak, have no pull at all. But you… you’re a maelstrom like nothing I’ve seen before. You could be so powerful.” 

 

“I don’t understand. All I did was free you from a bear trap that some moron had left in the middle of the woods. I only helped you like I would help anyone else.” Ben said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t do it to get anything from you.” 

 

Hux meets his eyes, his long braid fallen over the pillow and the sheets. “I know. That is why I have chosen you, and no one else.” 

 

_ Chosen. _ As if it was some kind of prize. 

 

“Let me show you my world, Ben Solo. Let me give you a reason to allow yourself to live again.” He reached his hand out, delicate fingers stretched toward him. He hadn’t given his last name, Ben realized numbly. Hux had just known. Who knew what else he had known about his past, though at this point he supposed it didn’t matter any. He had no deep secrets, nothing to hide. Only impenetrable darkness nestled and festering deep inside his heart. 

 

He took Hux’s offered hand, feeling some strange pull to kiss that pale flesh. His hand was so soft under Ben’s lips, everything about him so tiny and delicate like Ben could wrap his hands around Hux’s whole body and crush him. 

 

He never would, they both knew that. 

 

“What is your world, Hux?” He asks, though he isn’t sure he really wants to know the answer. “Where is a place that can mend something as broken as me?” 

 

“I can mend anything, I can build anything out of nothing. It’s how I became a tactician, you see? It’s what I was born to do.” Hux brushes his bare foot on the floor of the cabin. “Let me show you.” 

 

Hux isn’t going to ask again, but Ben is never going to say no.  

 

Hux pulls him up from the bed and out the cabin door. Ben doesn’t bother shutting it behind them. Her ghost can stay and tend to the flower crown if she wishes, but he can’t keep surviving for someone who had long since passed. Who couldn’t pass that realm to come back for him. Who would never ask him to keep lingering in such a place that drove him slowly, deliberately mad. 

 

Hux glanced back at him, smile warmer as he met Ben’s gaze. “The Queen has been so interested to meet you. We have not had a human in our world in some time.” 

 

Or maybe, he was walking directly into a place that would drive him slowly, deliberately mad Ben amended to himself. It still seemed a better fate than lingering in that cabin, waiting for death to claim him. “I’m interested to meet her too, if she’s anything like you.” Ben said, instead. 

 

Hux grinned viciously. “Oh, I’m one of a kind.” 

 

He had a habit of attracting those types, it seemed. 

 

He didn’t turn back. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've edited this so many times now that I don't even want to reread it again right now. I hope it turned out alright.
> 
> Also the comments are going to be moderated to try and mediate as much hate as possible.


End file.
